WOW!!!! I just improved my wireless signal strength

[twitchee2]

Well My sister was having lots of trouble getting internet to work in her room, we are both about 150ft away from the router through plently of walls. So I got thinking and i went to the local hobby store and picket up a 12x6in piece of brass sheet and some brass bars. I then made a parabola with the sheet and a mount at the focal with the bars. It was a instant sucess. I even made a small one for my USB wireless adapter. My sister got the net, and my signal was literally went from 40% signal strength and 60% link quality to 60 and 80. then I went and tried a right angle instead of a parabola becuase it was too focused. When I did that, the connection went up to 80% +- 8% strength and 100% quality. I was astonished that it actaually worked and it cost all of $7. All of this was achieved WITHOUT moving any hardware.


edit: PICS!!!

USB adapter
Router side view
router top view

 

[Rubycon]

You can use a spaghetti calender too.

 

[Sforsyth]

where's the pictures of that?

 

[Crescent13]

You don't have to worry about that when you have a Cat5 line installed in your house

 

[Jeff7]

Excellent idea. I was wondering what'd make a good parabola.....never thought of just using a sheet of metal. Not a perfect "parabola" per se, I'd imagine, more of a flattened cone, without the curves of a true parabola.

In college, in the campus apartments, I'd have recorded TV shows stored on my PC, and watch them in another room over my wireless network. But the signal was just barely enough to be able to stream the video fast enough for realtime play, and things like the microwave or flourescent lights would interfere with the signal. A simple, collapsible parabola would do the trick nicely, either at the transmitter or receiver end.

Thanks for the idea.

 

[twitchee2]

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
where's the pictures of that?

working on that maybe ill get them later tonight

 

[twitchee2]

PICS!!!

USB adapter
Router side view
router top view

 

[SynthDude2001]

Very cool

 

[Unkno]

nice

 

[bX510]

wow, i wish you showed me this earlier before i sold my netgear wgt624 router for $30 and bought a 2wire dsl modem/ router (2 in 1)

 

[T9D]

hmm cool. I wonder if this would work for cell phones while Im at my house...

 

[savvy]

Nice job and nice thinking.

 

[MichaelD]

Very cool. A+ for imaginiation and experimentation!

 

[Madwand1]

Good stuff. Here's a link.

http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/

 

[Raduque]

Nifty. I use the bowl-shaped reflector of an old floor standing lamp. It's not touching the antenna in any way, but just bracing it up next to the router boosted the signal to my sister's laptop by 2 bars.

 

[twitchee2]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
Good stuff. Here's a link.

http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/

thats the site i used for the little one and the basic idea for the corner one.